Final Beam Hoisted To UConn Hospital Roof

A final beam was placed on the 11th floor at the UConn hospital to mark the topping off ceremony.

A final beam was placed on the 11th floor at the UConn hospital to mark the topping off ceremony. (Christopher P. Keating)

CHRISTOPHER KEATING

Final steel beam hoisted at new UConn hospital in Farmington

With a crowd of dignitaries and construction workers watching, the final steel beam was hoisted atop the new University of Connecticut hospital tower Monday as officials anticipate the opening in 2016.

Top state officials - including Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, the UConn president, medical school dean, and chairman of the UConn board of trustees - looked skyward as the beam was pulled by a crane to the 11-story roof of a building that has been under construction for the past 18 months. Construction workers maneuvered the beam into place on a clear September afternoon as the crowd broke out into applause.

"Bioscience Connecticut has always been about the future - about what kinds of industries we want our state to be a leader in,'' Malloy said. "The progress being made here is a brick and mortar example of what we can do when we pull together and make the tough decisions that will benefit our state over the long term.''

The 11-story tower will have 11 new operating rooms, along with an emergency department with 43 beds on the 17-acre health campus in Farmington. The new hospital has the subject of a long-running controversy through the years - dating back at least to the tenure of Republican Gov. John G. Rowland - as the state legislature has gone back and forth several times over various plans regarding the size and scope of the hospital.

While Democrats have generally supported the health center's expansion, Republicans have repeatedly questioned the need for an expensive, new tower - saying that a new building with essentially the same number of beds as John Dempsey Hospital would do nothing to solve the health center's chronic funding shortages.

Republican Senator John McKinney, who graduated from UConn Law School, said when the plan was offered that the legislature had already been highly generous to UConn by providing more than $2 billion toward construction costs to transform the Storrs campus.

"The state has huge issues with respect to debt and unfunded liability,'' McKinney said at the time. "At some point, we're borrowing too much money. ... The UConn people bristle when I say it, but Harvard does not have their own hospital, and Harvard, as far as I know, is world-renowned as the best there is.''